2013-03-12

Kitchen Renovation - Part 7

"The Range Hood! Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? "

My plans started out simple. Shop around for a nice sleek stainless-steel direct vent similar to this Whirlpool Range Hood. After a couple months of shopping around I couldn't find one much less than $800 (I might have expensive tastes). But I still wanted to give myself plenty of time to look around and that's where this story took a detour from a leisurely kitchen renovation and headed deep into the dark world of home refinancing.

But I'll save that story for another post. Let's just say it involves a national database assembled and maintained in Washington DC AND my Range Hood and how Chase Bank is hell bent on making my life miserable.

FYI - Do not do business with Chase Bank

Eventually I talked myself down from the stainless-steel ledge and started thinking of a wood surround range hood. I priced a few Decorative Wood Range Hoods and found that after buying the blower they weren't that much cheaper than the stainless one ($700 range). But it got me thinking. What if I made my own? And I did. And it looks better than the store bought solutions. And it only cost me $85!!!

To appease Washington I had to move fast so my plans to go direct vent were thrown out the window and I had to go with a recirculating plan. I took dimensions of my new soffit, dimensions of a standard $35 range hood height I wanted the range hood off of the range and how far away from my face did I want the hood to be.

What was left was the images below, nothing too complex at first glance but I knew if the proportions were off disaster would ensue. The trick that I worked into the design is the front trim is set off from the sloped face by an extra 1 1/4" and lined with aluminum flashing to help direct the exhaust from the fan within. Unless you are looking at it from a side profile you really don't even notice it!

The part of this project where I just absolutely had a great time was making my own moulding profiles! After I knew about how large the trim needed to be I laid out my router bits and made plans to create my own profiles to compliment the size of the hood surround.

I ended up layering a few 1x's together and built some beefy trim pieces with some nice details. And then icing on the cake was when I mitered the pieces together and the profile is dramatically brought out. Not only did I get trim that was unique and complimented the design but it also cost about 1/4th the cost of pre-milled trim.

If you look closely you can also see how I relocated the controls for the fan/light to the face of the enclosure. That was a fun little task as well!Index: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4| 5| 6| 7| 8